Credit card fraud. Personal experience

Believe it when I see it Admin.

Well we all hear about it and only this last week I was listening to how the phishing phone call went.

The call goes something like: Hello Mr Smith, this is john from satellite Credit card services fraud department, we have noticed some unusual/suspicious transactions on your card and would like to ask whether you have bought anything from Itsy Bitsy Stores for the amount of £250?

They then carry on telling you that they will of course credit the amount to your account and not to worry, you can phone them on such and such a number and there name again is John, the reference number is 123654789, have you got that number?

They then chat a little more and casually ask if you can check that you still have the card in your posession, when you say yes, they ask if you can confirm the little 3 digit security number, if you tell them, they have you.

Well my call was pretty much the same, except the transactions were for £1 from an internet service provider, then £25 from a coach company, then £800 from an online discount store, the difference is that a) I was able to check as we spoke with my internet banking access and that he only asked for partial confirmation of my identity, like the month of my birth and c) was able to reel off my last dozen or so transactions.

So my card has been done for £800 or so, it is one that I only use on the net, so I know that it hasn't been swiped for information or taken at a cash point and the guy reckons that they have probably just guessed at the last four digits, carried out a test for £1 to register the card, then a small purchase, then a big one. It's as easy as that, but I will get the money back, as the discount store has obviously not checked the card details properly.

Amo Amas Amant Admin

IDD CI24 ECONO MM Penta 1.20 Galaxy II
1.2Mtr Polar MTG yes it has been on the arc for 25 years and is now fixed on 13 East using two pairs of rusty molegrips. Unlike me they never groan but always perform.

If anyone calls you and asks for your information. hang up and call the number of the Bank or credit card company using the number on the card.

Did you see this in the Scotsman? had to cut/paste as you must register to read...

SCOTLAND could be losing as much as £1 billion a year to fraud - but only a fraction of that is being detected and pursued through the courts.

According to KPMG's annual fraud barometer, published today, £18m worth of fraud was reported and resulted in convictions in Scotland last year.

That's a significant drop on 2004 when the sum hit a record £28.5m, but Ken Milliken, KPMG's head of forensics in Scotland, says it only represents "the tip of the iceberg" of what is an increasingly complex and sophisticated problem.

Milliken noted that last year was still the third highest level in Scotland since research began, with 15 fraud cases reaching court in 2005. Since 1995, when £3.87m worth was recorded, there has been a 370 per cent increase.

"We can take little comfort from the fact that the value of fraud happens to be lower this year. The reality is that in the last five years Scotland has seen a boom in fraud."

If there is any grain of comfort to be had, it's that Scotland has suffered less than the rest of the UK.

According to KPMG's figures, in the past six months there has been an explosion of fraud prosecutions across the UK, many of them high value. While there were 88 cases worth £249m in the first six months of 2005, this shot up to 134 cases worth £693m in the second half, making a total of more than £942m of fraud in 2005 - up nearly three times from the previous year, and the highest recorded level since 1995.

The largest fraud case in Scotland last year involved three men from Glasgow, who appeared in court in connection with a money-laundering operation involving almost £5m. This was dwarfed by the UK's largest fraud case, involving fraudulently acquired loans by metals trading company RBG Resources, worth £260m alone.

"Whilst our research tracking major fraud cases in UK courts shows that fraud is a major issue for both the public and private sector, the true cost of fraud is in reality far higher," Milliken said.

Last year the government, announcing a wide review of fraud laws, said it costs the UK economy at least £14 billion every year - equivalent to £230 for every person in the UK - and KPMG suggests £1bn of that could be accounted for in Scotland.

"Organisations are making continual improvements in the fight against fraud, but as advances in technology allow fraudsters to commit more sophisticated crimes, that effort has to continue if we are to begin to make inroads into an issue which causes harm to both the economy and wider society," Milliken said.

The government remains the biggest single victim of fraud (UK-wide £447m), largely through tax evasion and VAT and benefits fraud, while fraud against financial institutions - card fraud, identity fraud, false cheques - has spiralled from £37m in 2004 to £360m in 2005.

A little under half of fraud was carried out by professional gangs, but most was the result of "insider" fraud by management or employees (£468m). One example included a clerk on less than £20,000 a year who funded a lavish lifestyle by siphoning £140,000 from her employers over four years by adding digits on to the value of cheques to top up petty cash.

Milliken said criminal gangs appear to be increasingly active, with organised, aggressive stings often aimed at large financial institutions, while at the other end of the spectrum individuals are committing internal fraud against their employers, often to fund extravagant lifestyles or to pay off burgeoning debts. "With both the number and the average value of frauds increasing, companies and individuals need to be more vigilant than ever," Milliken said.

The year has also been notable for the number of VAT "carousel" fraud prosecutions, involving low cost, highly portable items such as mobile phones and tobacco. Two of the biggest UK cases, both involving mobile phones, were worth £58m and £40m respectively. Money-laundering cases have also been prominent, especially drugs money.

Identity fraud continues to be rife, as fraudsters seek ways around measures such as chip and PIN. "Phishing" scams on the internet are a common way of obtaining people's identities and bank details. In one scam nearly £200,000 was stolen from 160 people who were fooled by a bogus eBay auction site.

Do you really know 'him' in accounts?

ACCORDING to research, the profile of the fraudster is becoming clearer. He is usually male, with a lifestyle not matching his income, from management or senior management, and most likely (42 per cent) he's working quietly away in the finance department, rarely taking a holiday, fearing that someone covering for him might discover the deception.

But the profile varies. Last year's largest Scottish case involved three Glasgow men "cleaning" almost £5 million of drugs money. Cases against financial institutions include instances of employees feeding information or sending funds to outside accomplices - two such cases in the past sixth months were between them worth nearly £1m.

The issue of "sleeper" employees placed or groomed by criminal gangs has been flagged in recent months by the Financial Services Authority.

In one internet scam, a man pretending to be an official internet registrar "sold" businesses and individuals fake internet domain names and addresses to the tune of £1.5m.

Other ID frauds have been more bizarre, such as the former horseshoe-fitter who posed as a pioneering biochemist with a new process for making soap, who successfully swindled businesses and local authorities out of £60,000 in grants and loans.

Individual fraud is often motivated by addiction, commonly alcoholism or gambling habits. But some are motivated by more peculiar obsessions, such as the town hall cashier who stole more than £550,000 in car parking fees over nearly a decade to fund her Elvis Presley obsession.

Amo Amas Amant Admin

IDD CI24 ECONO MM Penta 1.20 Galaxy II
1.2Mtr Polar MTG yes it has been on the arc for 25 years and is now fixed on 13 East using two pairs of rusty molegrips. Unlike me they never groan but always perform.

Believe it when I see it Admin.

I think that I may be confusing people here, the second part of my post is actually regarding a genuine call tonight, the veracity of which I was able to confirm online without giving them any information which would help in the fraudulent use of my card.

The normal scam is when they have swiped your card and then looked up your phone number.

Amo Amas Amant Admin

IDD CI24 ECONO MM Penta 1.20 Galaxy II
1.2Mtr Polar MTG yes it has been on the arc for 25 years and is now fixed on 13 East using two pairs of rusty molegrips. Unlike me they never groan but always perform.

Believe it when I see it Admin.

If it had come from my computer, they would have had all of the correct information and it wouldn't have flagged up at the credit card comapny.

I have pretty much every bit of antilogging, antivirus, antispyware software on my PC, plus I run through a router on full stealth with a stateful inspection firewall, this information was not from my PC.

Amo Amas Amant Admin

IDD CI24 ECONO MM Penta 1.20 Galaxy II
1.2Mtr Polar MTG yes it has been on the arc for 25 years and is now fixed on 13 East using two pairs of rusty molegrips. Unlike me they never groan but always perform.

Believe it when I see it Admin.

It is worrying, they steal a card and then try the numbers on either side of it, logic would dictate that they exist and that some comapanies who trade online are less than scrupulous in checking that the name and number correspond.

Amo Amas Amant Admin

IDD CI24 ECONO MM Penta 1.20 Galaxy II
1.2Mtr Polar MTG yes it has been on the arc for 25 years and is now fixed on 13 East using two pairs of rusty molegrips. Unlike me they never groan but always perform.

That is true but when the whole idea of introducing chip and pin is put the burden of proof i.e. the financial loss on the retailer or the person who processes the card whether on line or in a store. Thus unscrupulous companies will loose out and not the consumer or more importantly the banks. So like last year where the banks claim there has already been an improvement due to chip and pin it is just that the loss is now made by the retailer not the bank or the loss is not made at all, which is obviously good

Specialist Contributor

unfortunatley i think this is going to be a common problem with the net, and online shopping getting more popular...

especially at risk are the kind of people who buy computers just for this purpose... like my neighbour, absolutely clueless with computers but does nearly all her shopping online.... until i helped her with a problem she had.... she didnt have any virus software or firewall!!!

Believe it when I see it Admin.

I've been assured that it will be credited to my account before any interest would become due. I guess that the loser is going to be the catalogue store and at the end of the day it is their fault, as they have delivered goods to a non registered address.

PS. Been using GRC for years, and the only thing they can find from my router is the network name (mshome) and a computer name, but strangely enough, not the one i am using, it is one of the others.

Amo Amas Amant Admin

IDD CI24 ECONO MM Penta 1.20 Galaxy II
1.2Mtr Polar MTG yes it has been on the arc for 25 years and is now fixed on 13 East using two pairs of rusty molegrips. Unlike me they never groan but always perform.

The mag stripes are already being dropped and indeed my new credit card doesn't have a mag stripe (but I cannot post a picture as I would give too many details away) and the duality I mentioned is only a short term scenario less than 3 years.